WOW! Women On Writing Blog: helping authors

Monday, February 24, 2020

Hey, it's me again...the goofy girl who loves to write and read, the one who takes pictures of the sun and food as well as cows and pigs. Me, the girl who is not and never will be considered normal. Today I bring you a story about parent teacher conferences and this super cool painting on the wall. If you make it to the end, there's also a worthwhile tip for cleaning scuff marks off your floor without bending over, so stick with me!

I spend my Wednesday mornings at the elementary school with the most absolutely wonderful group of children (some of them are mine, but most of them aren't). Our younger children look forward to my visits and our time together. The teachers seem to appreciate the extra adult in the room. I've done this for each of our children, but by the time they get to middle school it's not cool to have your mom hanging out with your friends. My time at the middle school is limited to parent teacher conferences.

During last week's conferences, I found this amazing painting on the wall (see above) and I had to take a selfie in front of it. I wasn't sure if my husband was amused, but I was super excited! The confetti you see in the background is the thumb prints of the students who helped put this message here for all to enjoy. This is a great reminder how we should all be kind. As an avid reader, I've been told that the kindest thing we can do as readers is to share the books we love. I do this all the time and I'm not sure if my social media followers love it or hate it, but I figure whether or not you like the confetti, you're bound to get some on you from time to time and you just have to deal with it. If people can share political posts on social media then we as readers should feel comfortable sharing books and kind words, right?

If you are an avid reader, let me ask you this:

Do you take time to write book reviews on Amazon, GoodReads, a personal blog/vlog, or other platforms? Why or why not?

Do you go one step further and share a link to your review(s) on your social media accounts? Why or why not?

What's stopping you from throwing your thoughts around like confetti? Don't you want to spread that kindness?

Now that I've barged into your space with my questions and goofy confetti throwing ideas, as promised here is something else I learned at parent teacher conferences at the middle school:

If you attach a tennis ball to the end of a stick or dowel, you can use it to clean scuff marks off the floor. No more bending over with an eraser or cloth! Mind blown!

And the moral of today's story is spending time at the middle school has a lot to offer! Thanks to you lovely reader for making it to the end and thanks to my children for teaching me things each and every day - may you always remember to throw kindness around like confetti!

Hugs,
~Crystal

Crystal is the office manager, council secretary, financial secretary, and musician at her church, birth mother, Auntie, babywearing mama, business owner, active journaler, writer and blogger, Blog Tour Manager with WOW! Women on Writing, Press Corp teammate for the DairyGirl Network, Unicorn Mom Ambassador, as well as a dairy farmer. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and their five youngest children, two dogs, four little piggies, a handful of cats and kittens, horses Darlin' and Joker, and over 250 Holsteins.

You can find Crystal milking cows, riding horses, and riding unicorns (not at the same time), taking the ordinary and giving it a little extra (making it extraordinary), blogging and reviewing books here, and at her personal blog - Crystal is dedicated to turning life's lemons into lemonade and she has never (not once) been accused of being normal!

5 comments being kind, book review, book reviews, helping authors, kindness, parenting, social media

Reviews - the Book Building Blocks

Saturday, February 10, 2018

How many books will I sell if I do a WOW! Women on Writing Book Blog Tour?

I wish I could easily answer this question, because it's one I am asked quite often. It reminds me of the chicken and egg question of old. Especially with Amazon and how the entire Amazon process works, you aren't going to sell books until you have high ranking reviews, but how do you get high ranking reviews if you haven't sold any copies? Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? or should I say the sales or the reviews?

Here's where a WOW! Women on Writing Book Blog Tour comes into play. We get your book into the hands of readers and reviewers. Truthfully, you may not sell any copies during your WOW! tour. It's also impossible to track how many copies you sell as a result of the tour. There's not a simple math problem saying "Spend $350 on a WOW! tour and sell $500 worth of books", but I can say for certain that successful authors have turned to us for tours again and again because we get their books into the hands of readers. Their name as an author as well as the title of their latest book get shared on social media and become popular. Our readers review the books on their blogs but also on Amazon and Goodreads. It's these reviews and reviewers that help build a solid foundation for future sales.

Whether you've publishes with a small press, self published, or used one of the large presses, you can benefit from more reviews. A WOW! tour is one of the easiest way to get these reviews. We do a lot of the work for you. But don't take my word for it. Here's what Karen Jones Gowen said to a group of fellow authors on Facebook:

Has anyone else tried WOW Women on Writing for blog tours?

I used them for my novel Afraid of Everything, and thought

Crystal Otto was fantastic. I highly recommend them and her!

Eric Trant responded to the above post saying:

Ditto. This is my third tour. Great way to launch. (referring to Risen)

and he went on to say:

Yall contact me directly if you have any questions or need references

for Crystal and WoW. Also, GUYS, don't let the name fool you.

Women on Writing is open to men, too.

I've had nothing but great experiences with them.

David Kalish had this to say:

I had a positive experience with the WOW blog tour Crystal arranged for my novel

The Opposite of Everything. She stayed on top of everything,

as friendly and organized, and gave me solid blog

exposure at what I thought was a reasonable price

B. Lynn Goodwin recently wrote on her FB Author Page:

Fun to be on this tour! (for her book Never Too Late)

We've had plenty of authors return to us with each book they've published. And I'd like to add that you don't have to be a female author to benefit from WOW! Women on Writing and our connections. David Berner and Eric Trant are both working on new books that will touring with us this year!

Drop us a note (at blogtour@wow-womenonwriting.com ) and let us know what you loved about your book blog tour with WOW! or let us know what you're working on and how we can help you this year! Let WOW! be part of your book and your success; together we can build a solid foundation with reviews!

Crystal is a council secretary and musician at her church, birth mother, babywearing cloth diapering mama (aka crunchy mama), business owner, active journaler, writer and blogger, Blog Tour Manager with WOW! Women on Writing, Publicist with Dream of Things Publishing, Press Corp teammate for the DairyGirl Network, Unicorn Mom Ambassador, as well as a dairy farmer. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband, five young children (Carmen 10, Andre 9, Breccan 4, Delphine 2, and baby Eudora, two dogs, four little piggies, a handful of cats and kittens, and over 230 Holsteins.

You can find Crystal riding unicorns, taking the ordinary and giving it a little extra (making it extraordinary), blogging and reviewing books, baby carriers, cloth diapers, and all sorts of other stuff here, and at her personal blog - Crystal is dedicated to turning life's lemons into lemonade!